Additive Manufacturing 3-D Printer for Hierarchical Material Composition-Morphology-Lattice Structure Developments and Investigations

North Carolina A&T State University (NCAT) DURIP project efforts focused on the acquisition, installation, training and initial evaluation, use of the acquired 3D additive manufacturing system for developing hierarchical, tailored material morphology, configurations, and lattice structures for research investigations. The 3D printer system Stratasys PolyJet J750 that was procured and installed is a current top of the line system in the field of 3D print additive manufacturing with multi-material capabilities from rigid to flexible polymers, eight print heads, listed layer thickness of 14 microns; ability for voxel level printing; capability for tailoring morphologies with nanomodified material resins with open configuration. J750 capabilities provide NCAT with a unique technology for development of hierarchical, multi-layer materials configurations and complex morphologies meeting our current research education and training, as well as new research directions and initiatives. New fundamental and applied research activities driven by this system is expected to motivate students (attracted by the capability and new technology) and lead them to the relevance, application of computational and mathematical methods that are required for understanding complex material morphologies, associated material behavior and mechanisms of failure and mitigation resulting in future masters thesis, doctoral dissertations, and refereed publications as well as trained work force.